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Going Rackmount for the first time - Xeon FreeNAS Build

bsodmike
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Hi all,

 

I'm in the process of planning a new build - most of the parts have arrived for the internals but I have at least decided on:

Main internals:

With regards to the Rackmount, well uh, rack.  What are the best practices with regards to grounding?  I went through couple of Linus' server room videos and I couldn't see any copper grounding busbars.

 

Also, if you have any comments on the above let me know.  Given the 2U height, I'm going for:

 

 

Thoughts?

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18 minutes ago, bsodmike said:

Hi all,

 

I'm in the process of planning a new build - most of the parts have arrived for the internals but I have at least decided on:

Main internals:

With regards to the Rackmount, well uh, rack.  What are the best practices with regards to grounding?  I went through couple of Linus' server room videos and I couldn't see any copper grounding busbars.

 

Also, if you have any comments on the above let me know.  Given the 2U height, I'm going for:

 

 

Thoughts?

Pretty sure the case itself is grounded via the power supply in most situations.

Normally PSU's themselves are grounded and since you screw in (read: connect) your psu, the case and other components should be grounded.

That time I saved Linus' WiFi pass from appearing on YouTube: 

A sudden Linus re-appears : http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/390793-important-dailymotion-account-still-active/

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20 minutes ago, bsodmike said:

Hi all,

 

I'm in the process of planning a new build - most of the parts have arrived for the internals but I have at least decided on:

Main internals:

With regards to the Rackmount, well uh, rack.  What are the best practices with regards to grounding?  I went through couple of Linus' server room videos and I couldn't see any copper grounding busbars.

 

Also, if you have any comments on the above let me know.  Given the 2U height, I'm going for:

 

 

Thoughts?

As for your HBA, not sure if it's cheaper, but try Ebay for a used LSI 9211-8i. You're gonna have to flash em both to something called IT mode, since Freenas NEEDS bit level access to the drives.

That time I saved Linus' WiFi pass from appearing on YouTube: 

A sudden Linus re-appears : http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/390793-important-dailymotion-account-still-active/

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Your chassis will be grounded to the cabinet, and your servers PSU will be grounded to the PDU which will be grounded to mains.

There generally isnt a need for busbars in a cabinet.

 

Am wondering though why you need an 8C/16T CPU for a FreeNAS build with 8 drives?

Or are you going to be setting up a Plex jail or something as well?

 

That Avago 9300 is really nice - but I think a bit overkill for 8 drives since you wont see the performance of a 12Gbps bus.

Have you thought about the 9211-8i or the AOC-SAS2LP-MV8? Should be a lot cheaper

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23 minutes ago, bsodmike said:

Hi all,

 

I'm in the process of planning a new build - most of the parts have arrived for the internals but I have at least decided on:

Main internals:

With regards to the Rackmount, well uh, rack.  What are the best practices with regards to grounding?  I went through couple of Linus' server room videos and I couldn't see any copper grounding busbars.

 

Also, if you have any comments on the above let me know.  Given the 2U height, I'm going for:

 

 

Thoughts?

(I should have really put all my posts together but oh well)

 

What's the main use case for your Freenas box? Just file storage or will it run some services aswell?

Mainly asking because you've gone for a rather expensive cpu option. There used to be some 'ideal' Asrock board for Freenas. Uh IIRC: Asrock Rack c2750d4i.

Eight cores, Avaton so lower power and still capable of holding 32gigs of ECC ram. Combined with the amount of SATA ports (assuming hdd storage) and dual gigabit + ipmi, it could really help your price card down.

That time I saved Linus' WiFi pass from appearing on YouTube: 

A sudden Linus re-appears : http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/390793-important-dailymotion-account-still-active/

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4 minutes ago, MrKickkiller said:

As for your HBA, not sure if it's cheaper, but try Ebay for a used LSI 9211-8i. You're gonna have to flash em both to something called IT mode, since Freenas NEEDS bit level access to the drives.

Thanks so much, I will go for that cheaper version.  https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA67S46V3429

Doubled checked the comments/reviews and many have commented that flashing IT mode + FreeNAS are good to go.  It is however 6Gb/s but that's OK for me to start out.  Anything to keep the cost down now helps.

 

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Pretty sure the case itself is grounded via the power supply in most situations.

Normally PSU's themselves are grounded and since you screw in (read: connect) your psu, the case and other components should be grounded.

Ah d'oh, that makes sense!

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1 minute ago, Jarsky said:

Am wondering though why you need an 8C/16T CPU for a FreeNAS build with 8 drives?

Or are you going to be setting up a Plex jail or something as well?

 

That Avago 9300 is really nice - but I think a bit overkill for 8 drives since you wont see the performance of a 12Gbps bus.

Have you thought about the 9211-8i or the AOC-SAS2LP-MV8? Should be a lot cheaper

Thanks for the info Jarsky.

 

1. Yes, there will probably be a Plex jail.  I also have a GTX1070 on hand for some Ethereum mining, which I may throw in the box as it's the only spare GPU I have on hand.  With CUDA support, CPU load is negligible, but I would need to see if this plays nicely in a jail.

 

2. Just been informed about that and I will go for the 9211-8i.  It's $99 and muuuuch cheaper than the 9300.

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1 minute ago, Jarsky said:

Your chassis will be grounded to the cabinet, and your servers PSU will be grounded to the PDU which will be grounded to mains.

There generally isnt a need for busbars in a cabinet.

 

Am wondering though why you need an 8C/16T CPU for a FreeNAS build with 8 drives?

Or are you going to be setting up a Plex jail or something as well?

 

That Avago 9300 is really nice - but I think a bit overkill for 8 drives since you wont see the performance of a 12Gbps bus.

Have you thought about the 9211-8i or the AOC-SAS2LP-MV8? Should be a lot cheaper

 

CPU choise wise, I also figured that his full fledged 8core could probably be too much.

However, I feel you may be over estimating the power required by Plex. A simple Avaton C2750 (8 core atom type processor) is already enough for 2 full fat 1080 streams.

That time I saved Linus' WiFi pass from appearing on YouTube: 

A sudden Linus re-appears : http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/390793-important-dailymotion-account-still-active/

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3 minutes ago, MrKickkiller said:

(I should have really put all my posts together but oh well)

 

What's the main use case for your Freenas box? Just file storage or will it run some services aswell?

Mainly asking because you've gone for a rather expensive cpu option. There used to be some 'ideal' Asrock board for Freenas. Uh IIRC: Asrock Rack c2750d4i.

Eight cores, Avaton so lower power and still capable of holding 32gigs of ECC ram. Combined with the amount of SATA ports (assuming hdd storage) and dual gigabit + ipmi, it could really help your price card down.

I was planning to run a Plex jail, and some docker containers for various services.

The plex transcoding bit should take advantage of the extra grunt.

 

I also try to go a for a generally slightly better CPU in the event I may need to cannibalise/repurpose the system (and sort of look at it as future proofing).  In any case, I didn't see lower number of cores/higher clock being a plus for this system.

I wasn't able to confirm if the Asus X99-E WS/USB3.1 had or doesn't have the IPMI option.  They do make a X99-E WS/IPMI though.  That certainly would have been handy.

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Tad OT question - I've planned to order 6x 4TB WD Red drives which are 5400rpm at $134 a pop.

 

Should I consider the 4TB Red Pros though at 7200rpm? Do you figure this would impact Raidz2 performance a great deal?

 

By the end of the year I'm also upgrading part of my intranet to 10G with a Ubiquiti ES-16-XG EdgeSwitch; I'd drop in a 10G PCIe card and give the FreeNAS super-speed connectivity to rest of the critical systems, i.e. main workstation(s) plus the box in the home-theatre room.  Then, do you think the 5400 to 7200rpm jump be a worthwhile factor to consider?

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36 minutes ago, bsodmike said:

Tad OT question - I've planned to order 6x 4TB WD Red drives which are 5400rpm at $134 a pop.

 

Should I consider the 4TB Red Pros though at 7200rpm? Do you figure this would impact Raidz2 performance a great deal?

 

By the end of the year I'm also upgrading part of my intranet to 10G with a Ubiquiti ES-16-XG EdgeSwitch; I'd drop in a 10G PCIe card and give the FreeNAS super-speed connectivity to rest of the critical systems, i.e. main workstation(s) plus the box in the home-theatre room.  Then, do you think the 5400 to 7200rpm jump be a worthwhile factor to consider?

 

With 8x 5TB WD Reds in a RAID 5 I do pretty good for maxing a good bit of my 10G connection. The 4K randoms aren't great but I tossed an SSD cache into my QNAP and it's been much better since. The difference between the 5400 and 7200 won't be much so I wouldn't bother unless the difference is only a few bucks. If you're interested in some 5TB Reds I'm selling a bunch of mine after downsizing my server, pop on over to Classifieds if you're interested :) 

Current Network Layout:

Current Build Log/PC:

Prior Build Log/PC:

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10 hours ago, Lurick said:

 

With 8x 5TB WD Reds in a RAID 5 I do pretty good for maxing a good bit of my 10G connection. The 4K randoms aren't great but I tossed an SSD cache into my QNAP and it's been much better since. The difference between the 5400 and 7200 won't be much so I wouldn't bother unless the difference is only a few bucks. If you're interested in some 5TB Reds I'm selling a bunch of mine after downsizing my server, pop on over to Classifieds if you're interested :) 

Thanks mate, I'll be including 2x separate 120GB SanDisk SSDs for ZFS cash (in FreeNAS).  The WD Reds should be plenty then.

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